Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

Tautech, I have no idea what you're referring to. 

   So this Tek AWG you posted is not yours then.

med sez: "I wish!"    Guurgle sez it belongs ta dis guy: http://www.lydecker.org/Tektronix_535A.htm


mnem
 

[bd139]

5328A ....

https://youtu.be/tK49pz8II3E?t=141

Noise!

Also bastards to fix as the thing is modular and there's no access to the cards without extenders.

[Mr. Scram]

It would indeed but that’s too much hassle when I can just press two buttons and enter the offset

I’ve built a couple of “virtual instruments” with the DG1054Z and DG1022Z. They both have SCPI and Ethernet. However sometimes you don’t want to bother with that crap

Granted, it's a rabbit hole in its own right.

[mnementh]

5328A ....   https://youtu.be/tK49pz8II3E?t=141   Noise!   Also bastards to fix as the thing is modular and there's no access to the cards without extenders.

Jeebus! does that thing have a fucking hair dryer inside it...? Please tell me it idles down once it's done with POST?  *watches the rest of the video* NOPE.
mnem
 

[bd139]

5328A ....   https://youtu.be/tK49pz8II3E?t=141   Noise!   Also bastards to fix as the thing is modular and there's no access to the cards without extenders.

Jeebus! does that thing have a fucking hair dryer inside it...?

mnem
 

Basically yes. AC fan sucking through a vent and then blowing into the most lumpy bit of the board. Noisy as fuck.

Just found a picture of my old 5328A finally after half an hour of digging.



Excuse the blurryness. I was on a shit windows phone then. This was ~3 years ago. My first 475 is also featured. I regret selling that scope. It was literally perfect in every way.

The counter got replaced with a 5315A which didn't annoy me.

Edit: no it doesn't idle down. I had another one as well. Powering two up you couldn't hear the voices in your own head telling you how stupid you were to have bought them 

[med6753]

Tautech, I have no idea what you're referring to. 

So this Tek AWG you posted is not yours then.

No, but I wish it was. It was a photo I found to show the relative size of the old Tek 500 series scopes. Perhaps I should have indicated that it wasn't mine. 

[nixiefreqq]

5328A ....   https://youtu.be/tK49pz8II3E?t=141   Noise!   Also bastards to fix as the thing is modular and there's no access to the cards without extenders.

Jeebus! does that thing have a fucking hair dryer inside it...?

mnem
 

Basically yes. AC fan sucking through a vent and then blowing into the most lumpy bit of the board. Noisy as fuck.

Just found a picture of my old 5328A finally after half an hour of digging.



Excuse the blurryness. I was on a shit windows phone then. This was ~3 years ago. My first 475 is also featured. I regret selling that scope. It was literally perfect in every way.

The counter got replaced with a 5315A which didn't annoy me.

Edit: no it doesn't idle down. I had another one as well. Powering two up you couldn't hear the voices in your own head telling you how stupid you were to have bought them 

you must be overly sensitive to noise.

had them both side by side and honestly the 5345 was twice as loud as any 5328.

[bd139]

Overly sensitive to noise = not deaf yet 

Back to an earlier topic: Some more RIFA motivation. I found my archive of exploded RIFA images while I was sorting out the computer the other day:

RIFA went for a steaming session spraying its brown spooge over everything:



Full nuclear mode:

[mnementh]

5328A ....   https://youtu.be/tK49pz8II3E?t=141   Noise!   Also bastards to fix as the thing is modular and there's no access to the cards without extenders.

Jeebus! does that thing have a fucking hair dryer inside it...?

mnem
 

Basically yes. AC fan sucking through a vent and then blowing into the most lumpy bit of the board. Noisy as fuck. Just found a picture of my old 5328A finally after half an hour of digging.
   Excuse the blurryness. I was on a shit windows phone then. This was ~3 years ago. My first 475 is also featured. I regret selling that scope. It was literally perfect in every way. The counter got replaced with a 5315A which didn't annoy me.

Edit: no it doesn't idle down. I had another one as well. Powering two up you couldn't hear the voices in your own head telling you how stupid you were to have bought them 

LOL!  Yeah, I watched the rest of the video... Just that freaking jet engine drone all day, every day.  

   I guess this unit has to move a fair quantity of air; lookit the size of that OXCO all the way at the front of the cabinet and the linear PSU that feeds it.
Must be dissipating a couple hundred watts by the looks of it, and doing it the hardest way possible because it pulls from the front and exits out the rear but NOT with a positive-pressure design. 

mnem
*getting the grill ready*

[bitseeker]

This post has all the links: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg2314755/#msg2314755

Thanks! I missed that one. Added it to the other links about patch cables in the POI.

[bitseeker]

While they are pretty crazy $, one of my most used bits of equipment is an ac lab power supply, one of keysight's 'basic' ones - my eyes are still bleeding from the price !
But bloody useful powering up some old monster for the first time in this millennium. They also act as an ac power monitor /power factor, it can limit current, can have dc bias and alter frequency.
Rob

Yeah, I'd like to have one of those, especially for the adjustable current limit. But, for the price, I'll have to stick with light bulbs.

[bitseeker]

Got a good lesson in proper termination. Was playing around with the 7904 and was curious about the “Sig Out” BNC on the front panel. I figured that would be a good place to connect a frequency counter. So connected up the Fluke 1900A. It works but there's a problem. The input is 10MHz. The Fluke is reading 20MHz. Huh?



So....connected that output to the 2465DMS with counter readout. Sure enough, 20MHz. And that trace is downright ugly. It should be a square wave.



Let's try something. Switch the 2465 to 50 ohm input impedance. Ah ha!. Square wave, 10MHz. As it should be. The Fluke has 1MEG input impedance. That explains it. I need to get some 50 ohm feed thru terminators. Hello Amazon.   

Wow, that's the most extreme real-life example of the importance of impedance matching I've seen.

[bitseeker]

The 5335A with the optional C input is very capable. Input C gets you up to 1.3 GHz or so. Mine even has the voltmeter option!

Holy shit....I told you. I ain't ready to dive in THAT deep just yet.  Something smaller, less complicated.....and MUCH fucking cheaper. 

Med, for smaller options:

HP 5315A, 5316A/B: 100 MHz universal counters. Get one with the third input for pre-scaler support up to 1 GHz. Also has option for OCXO. LED display.

Racal 1992: Most seem to have been military units. Also has options for OCXO and 1.3 GHz pre-scaler. Bigger LED display than the HPs. Warning: Front panel tact switches commonly go to mush. Check forum for suitable replacements.

[mnementh]

ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!


Just ran out of propane... at 19:30 on the 4th of July.

mnem
 

[ArthurDent]

Here's an Rb standard connected to three different counters, a couple that aren't all that common. External timebase on all three is GPS.

[nixiefreqq]

The 5335A with the optional C input is very capable. Input C gets you up to 1.3 GHz or so. Mine even has the voltmeter option!

Holy shit....I told you. I ain't ready to dive in THAT deep just yet.  Something smaller, less complicated.....and MUCH fucking cheaper. 

Med, for smaller options:

HP 5315A, 5316A/B: 100 MHz universal counters. Get one with the third input for pre-scaler support up to 1 GHz. Also has option for OCXO. LED display.

Racal 1992: Most seem to have been military units. Also has options for OCXO and 1.3 GHz pre-scaler. Bigger LED display than the HPs. Warning: Front panel tact switches commonly go to mush. Check forum for suitable replacements.

hmmmmmm.   have never owned a 5315/16.

did they have a battery power option?

damn it!  if i go to the bay to look at them you know what is gonna' happen.

[Carl_Smith]

Well, this is a Royal Kludge:

https://www.banggood.com/RK-G-87-87keys-Wireless-Bluetooth-3_0-USB-Wired-Dual-Mode-Mechanical-Gaming-Keyboard-Brown-Switch-p-1352277.html

[bitseeker]

Here's an Rb standard connected to three different counters, a couple that aren't all that common. External timebase on all three is GPS.

Cool. The Pendulum counter reminds me of a Fluke/Philips. Did Philips make theirs, too?

[bitseeker]

Med, for smaller options:

HP 5315A, 5316A/B: 100 MHz universal counters. Get one with the third input for pre-scaler support up to 1 GHz. Also has option for OCXO. LED display.

Racal 1992: Most seem to have been military units. Also has options for OCXO and 1.3 GHz pre-scaler. Bigger LED display than the HPs. Warning: Front panel tact switches commonly go to mush. Check forum for suitable replacements.

hmmmmmm.   have never owned a 5315/16.

did they have a battery power option?

damn it!  if i go to the bay to look at them you know what is gonna' happen.

Of course! The 5315A is the portable version with handle and optional battery. You're welcome.

[beanflying]

I have taken my counters off the bench to the back rack for space reasons (still within cable reach) and have been using my GPSDO tweaked Siglent SDG2042 generally. It has some useful statistics features and so far I have found it very stable and accurate over time.

Having the GPSDO live 24/7 on top of the 5305B and feeding it gives me a compact and highly accurate source and counter. The Nixie ones I own get fired up when I feel the need for the warm glow that is 

[ArthurDent]

"Cool. The Pendulum counter reminds me of a Fluke/Philips. Did Philips make theirs, too? "

Pendulum made them for Philips who sold them as the PM6681

[grizewald]

This one little piece... the PDB... weighs twice as much as the last FPV/AP quad I built, and that's all-up flying weight. 

35g including battery?

Pictures please!

I'm having fun debugging this little monster at the moment and it weighs 199g together with the 650mA/h 4S battery strapped underneath or 130g dry. At 199g all-up, it hovers at 25% throttle, so there's plenty of power there for high-speed FPV acrobatics. It's also good for line of sight flight as the outline makes it easy to maintain orientation. I doubt if I could go much lighter than 200g and still have good performance.


(I put the 18650 there for scale and it weighs 45g.)

I have a Rotor-X Atom 122 which was 130g all-up and performance was OK with 3" carbon fibre propellers. The tiny 1105 motors I had on the Atom are shot though, so it's awaiting a rebuild. The 35g you are talking about is only 10g more than the featherweight H8 mini, so it would be interesting to see what you did with such a minimal all-up weight.

[VK5RC]

ARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!


Just ran out of propane... at 19:30 on the 4th of July.

mnem
 

What were you thinking!
Spare tyre (tire for the 'muricans) in the car, spare fuses for test equipment, and NO spare 9kg of bbq fuel! WTF!
Actually - I just realised that' the dragon' should be able to fix that straight away!

[bitseeker]

Surely the dwagon has backup charcoal.

[Kosmic]

So what do you do when you’re supposed to be home recovering from a cold? You go to your local used TE shop off course!



Found a good looking HP 53310a (kj7e you're entirely responsible for this  ). Was a bargain since it fail to power up. The fuse is fine so there is something wrong in the power supply. Overall in good physical shape. Came with the rackmount cage and Option 1 (extra mem) and 30 (input C at 2.5Ghz).

So the brown juice coming out of the back of the case tell me it’s going to be an easy fix.